2022 - 2023 General Cardiology Fellows
Yaanik Desai, MD
Yaanik grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and studied biomedical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, where he conducted research in single-cell biology under Dr. Arjun Raj. He returned to Atlanta to attend medical school at Emory University, where he investigated outcomes from atrial fibrillation ablation and ICD extraction procedures under Dr. Faisal Merchant. He completed his internal medicine training at UCSF, where he studied the association between high-sensitivity troponin and cardiovascular outcomes under the mentorship of Dr. Rakesh Mishra and Dr. Nelson Schiller. He served as Chief Resident at UCSF from 2020-2021. He plans to pursue a career in academic cardiology, and he is broadly interested in the applications of deep learning in arrhythmia research. Outside of work, he is passionate about food and wine.
Sneha Jain, MD, MBA
Dr. Sneha Shah Jain grew up in Naperville, Illinois and attended Duke University, where she studied Economics. Between her third and fourth years of medical school at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Jain pursued an MBA at Harvard Business School. She subsequently worked at Moderna Therapeutics and Flare Capital prior to starting internal medicine residency at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia. During residency, Dr. Jain was selected as a Silverman Fellow in Healthcare Innovation. In this capacity, she worked with clinical and data science partners to build and deploy the technological infrastructure to identify patients with certain cardiac conditions earlier in the course of their disease. Her research and entrepreneurial interests focus on the use of digital health and machine learning to reimagine healthcare delivery models and improve patient outcomes in cardiology.
Olumuyiwa “Olu” Akinrimisi
Dr. Olu Akinrimisi was raised in Long Beach, California. He graduated from UC San Diego where he studied psychology and chemistry. He then moved to East San Jose, California to serve as a middle school math teacher and girls basketball coach. Then he returned to UC San Diego to complete his medical degree, where he nurtured his passion for healthcare operations and health disparities. Next, he decided to get his MS in healthcare management at Johns Hopkins University. He completed his residency at UCLA, where he studied health disparities in ventricular arrhythmias and healthcare operations. Olu hopes to continue studying the disparities in diagnostics and management of electrical diseases. Moreover, Olu loves spending his time cooking ethnic dishes, carpentry, weightlifting, and watching dramatic movies/tv series.
Michael Liu, MD, PhD
Dr. Michael Liu was born and raised in sunny Los Angeles. He earned his BS in Physics and MS in Bioengineering at Stanford University studying new radiology and radiation oncology modalities in partnership with SLAC. He then traveled back down the Golden Coast to UCLA where in the MD-PhD program he fell in love with the physics of the heart, studying arrhythmia mechanisms with a special interest in Long QT Syndromes and Torsades de Pointes. He was happy to come back to The Farm for internal medicine residency and cardiology fellowship and has a dream to someday make amiodarone obsolete with computational modeling assisted antiarrhythmic drug discovery. Outside of work, Michael is also passionate about aviation and cats. He has held a pilot’s license since age 17 and now has 4 cats including one who had to outgrow dynamic LVOT obstruction as a kitten.
Sofia Gomez, MD
Dr. Sofia Gomez was born and raised in Miami, FL. She attended Princeton University and studied chemistry as an undergraduate before earning her MD at the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her Internal Medicine residency at Stanford, where she conducted research primarily under the guidance of Drs. Fatima Rodriguez and Marco Perez. She is interested in preventive cardiology, with a particular research focus on the screening and prevention of arrhythmias. Her clinical and research interests are also rooted in advancing health equity, particularly among women with cardiac risk factors or diseases. Outside of work, she enjoys cheering on the Miami Heat, playing basketball and tennis, and listening to spoken word poetry.
Andrew Nguyen, MD
Dr. Andrew Nguyen is from Fullerton, California. He graduated from UCLA with a degree in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology. He completed his MD at Harvard Medical School in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program. He completed an MD thesis with Dr. Benjamin Ebert where he studied the role of immunomodulatory drugs (IMiDs) on the pathogenesis of clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP). Andrew completed Internal Medicine residency training at Stanford where he studied arrhythmia patterns in transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis and cardiovascular toxicities of immunotherapy. He plans to pursue a career in academic cardiology focused on cardio-oncology and the mechanisms of myocardial and vascular injury by cancer therapeutics.
Elena Vasti, MD
Elena Vasti was proudly raised by her mom and Yiayia in the California central valley before pursuing her MPH at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and MD at UCSF School of Medicine. She became passionate about the intersection of cardiovascular medicine and public health, piloting a bluetooth-enabled blood pressure monitoring program for underserved patients as a second-year medical student. She continued similar needs-based work throughout residency, supported by incredible mentors including Drs. Fatima Rodriguez, Paul Wang and Alex Sandhu. She served as a chief medical resident from 2022-2023, where she was fortunate to be mentored by her program director, Dr. Witteles, and an amazing group of APDs. She is excited to pursue a career in advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology. Outside of work, you may spot her hitting the pavement on her daily 8-mile run to "Elena Ave" for good luck.
Aradhana Verma, MD
Dr. Aradhana Verma is a physician with a focus on utilizing outcomes research and digital innovation to improve cardiovascular health. Born in India and raised in California, she earned a degree in Cognitive Science from UC Berkeley and a Masters in Translational Medicine from UC Berkeley and UCSF. She received her MD from California Northstate University and completed her internal medicine residency at UCLA, where she led a trial using telehealth to optimize guideline-directed medical therapy for Veterans with heart failure. Her research interests include clinical informatics and digital health for equitable cardiovascular outcomes. In her free time, she enjoys the outdoors, cooking plant-based meals, and exploring local coffee shops.
John Tanaka, MD
Dr. John Tanaka grew up in Mililani, HI, before attending USC for his undergraduate studies. He completed both his MD and Internal Medicine training at Duke. He is interested in pursuing an academic career in interventional cardiology with a focus on outcomes research in peripheral artery disease. Outside of work, he enjoys golfing, running, and hiking.
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Daniel Amponsah, MD
Dr. Daniel Amponsah was born and raised in Loma Linda, California. He graduated with a BS in Biochemistry from Pacific Union College in Northern California and received his MD from Loma Linda University School of Medicine where he graduated AOA. He completed his internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and was appointed Simulation Chief during his senior year. He is interested in pursuing an academic career in interventional cardiology with a focus on outcomes and health disparities. Prior research work has explored disparities in the management of aortic stenosis alongside Dr. Sammy Elmariah and outcomes in people presenting to the hospital with cardiogenic shock and STEMI with Dr. Anthony Hilliard. Outside of work, he enjoys playing piano/bass, game night with friends, and trips to Napa Valley.
Evaline Cheng, MD
Dr. Evaline Cheng was raised in Sunnyvale, California. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in ecology and evolutionary biology and a concentration in global health. Afterwards, she spent a year working in health policy in Washington DC, which first sparked her interest in healthcare systems. She earned her medical degree from UC San Diego and completed her internal medicine residency at UCLA. At UCLA, she conducted research investigating disparities of cardiovascular prevention in the cardio-oncology population. She also focused on quality improvement to advance guideline-based hypertension treatment utilizing clinical informatics. Through her cardiology fellowship, she plans to combine her research interests in healthcare systems and implementation science with her clinical interests in prevention and cardio-oncology.
Muhammad Fazal, MD, MS
Dr. Fazal was born in Pakistan and grew up in Dubai. He attended college at McGill University where he studied anatomy and cell biology. He completed his MS and MD from Boston University School of Medicine, graduating AOA and Magna Cum Laude. Fazal completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Stanford, where he studied the arrhythmia burden of tyrosine kinase inhibitors in patients using cardiac holter monitors and worked on using AI to predict arrhythmias in patients undergoing tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapies. As a fellow, he hopes to continue his work at the intersection of cardio-oncology and electrophysiology and pursue a career in academic cardiology. Outside of work, he is passionate about soccer, hiking, and cooking.
Tasmeen Hussain, MD, MPH
Dr. Tasmeen Hussain grew up in Columbia, Missouri and earned a B.S. with honors in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Johns Hopkins University. She then attended Northwestern University and completed both her MD/MPH degrees as well as Internal Medicine residency there. Her research goals revolve around the study of tech-based behavioral interventions to improve cardiovascular health on a large scale. Her previous work includes research on smartphone apps for chronic disease management in pregnancy with Dr. Lynn Yee, motivational interviewing techniques to improve diet with Dr. Neil Stone and cardiovascular disease risk in liver transplant patients with Drs. Donald Lloyd-Jones and Lisa Van Wagner. Clinically, Dr. Hussain hopes to build a career in preventive cardiology and has a particular passion for the care of Spanish-speaking patients and communities.
Jiwen Li, MD
Dr. Jiwen Li is a Midwest transplant and spent her childhood in Omaha, Nebraska and Vermillion, South Dakota. She is a graduate of the Rice/Baylor Medical Scholars Program and subsequently completed her residency in Internal Medicine-Pediatrics at UCLA, and served as chief resident for the IM program. Her residency research centered on device outcomes in patients with congenital heart disease, and health system innovations through clinical informatics, and its intersection with quality improvement. Her clinical interests include advanced cardiac imaging and adult congenital heart disease. A lover of the great outdoors, she is excited to hike and backpack all the great trails NorCal has to offer. Secretly, she is also a homebody and can be found raising plants and watching too much TV.
Jack O'Sullivan, MD, PhD
Jack W O’Sullivan grew up in his native Australia, where he completed medical school and clinically worked as a resident. He then pursed a PhD in computational epidemiology at the University of Oxford (UK), as a Clarendon Scholar. During his PhD, he also moonlighted as a Senior House Officer at Oxford University Hospitals (John Radcliffe Hospital). After his PhD, he completed a NIH T32 Postdoctoral Fellow with Euan Ashley at Stanford. After his postdoc, he completed internal medicine at Stanford, and fast-tracked into Cardiology also at Stanford on the Physician-Scientist pathway. His research focuses on genetics, and epidemiology/advanced statistics/machine learning. Outside of work, Jack loves to surf exploring the waves from Ocean Beach, San Francisco to Santa Cruz.
Gabriella Spencer-Bonilla, MD, MSc
Gaby earned a BA in Human Biology from Stanford, an M.Sc. in Clinical and Translational Science from Mayo Clinic, and an MD from University of Puerto Rico. She completed residency at Stanford where she also served as chief resident. Her academic interests include shared decision making, minimally disruptive medicine, research synthesis, addressing the negative effects of structural violence and racism on cardiovascular health and transthyretin cardiomyopathy.
Shire Beach, MD
Shire was born and raised in Livermore, California. After graduating with a degree in biology from Stanford, she spent a year working in the San Francisco public school system as a member of AmeriCorps. She went on to attend medical school at UCSF and completed her residency training in internal medicine at UCLA. At UCLA, she conducted research investigating the impact of fungal prophylaxis on chronic lung allograft dysfunction as well as issues impacting women, both as providers and patients, in cardiovascular medicine. Shire is thrilled to return to Stanford for cardiology fellowship and plans to pursue a career in advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology. In her time away from the hospital, she enjoys Nora Ephron movies, musical theater, creative writing, and narrative medicine.
Yaanik Desai, MD
Yaanik grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and studied biomedical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, where he conducted research in single-cell biology under Dr. Arjun Raj. He returned to Atlanta to attend medical school at Emory University, where he investigated outcomes from atrial fibrillation ablation and ICD extraction procedures under Dr. Faisal Merchant. He completed his internal medicine training at UCSF, where he studied the association between high-sensitivity troponin and cardiovascular outcomes under the mentorship of Dr. Rakesh Mishra and Dr. Nelson Schiller. He served as Chief Resident at UCSF from 2020-2021. He plans to pursue a career in academic cardiology, and he is broadly interested in the applications of deep learning in arrhythmia research. Outside of work, he is passionate about food and wine.
Zaniar Ghazizadeh, MD
Dr. Zaniar Ghazizadeh completed his Internal Medicine training at Yale New Haven Hospital/Yale School of Medicine. He received his medical degree from Tehran University of Medical Sciences and spent a few years as a post-doctoral fellow at Weill Cornell Medicine and Brigham and Women’s Hospital before his residency. His research interest lies in the development of in vitro and in vivo platforms for studying heart regeneration and precision medicine. Dr. Ghazizadeh’s work is focused on identifying the mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias using several experimental systems ranging from genetically engineered animal models to human pluripotent stem cell derived cardiac cell types. His ultimate goal as a clinician-scientist is to utilize this framework for drug discovery and identifying new therapeutic strategies that can prevent or reverse specific arrhythmias.
Sneha Jain, MD, MBA
Dr. Sneha Shah Jain grew up in Naperville, Illinois and attended Duke University, where she studied Economics. Between her third and fourth years of medical school at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Jain pursued an MBA at Harvard Business School. She subsequently worked at Moderna Therapeutics and Flare Capital prior to starting internal medicine residency at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia. During residency, Dr. Jain was selected as a Silverman Fellow in Healthcare Innovation. In this capacity, she worked with clinical and data science partners to build and deploy the technological infrastructure to identify patients with certain cardiac conditions earlier in the course of their disease. Her research and entrepreneurial interests focus on the use of digital health and machine learning to reimagine healthcare delivery models and improve patient outcomes in cardiology.”
Daniel Kim, MD, PhD
Dr Dan Seung Kim was born and raised in Seattle, WA. He received his M.D. from the University of Michigan, graduating AOA, cum laude, and cum laude traditionis causa. During his medical training, he also received a Ph.D. in Genome Sciences and M.P.H. in Biostatistics, working on lipid metabolism genetics with Gail P Jarvik and later, Elizabeth Speliotes and Mike Boehnke. Dan completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Stanford as part of the Translational Investigator Program. As a fellow, he plans to work in multi-omics studying the physiologic response of the body to exercise, particularly in the setting of metabolic disease. Further information on his research is available on his Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-BS4U9IAAAAJ&hl=en).
Alexandra Steverson, MD, MPH
Dr. Alexandra Steverson grew up in New London, New Hampshire and attended Bates College in Maine where she majored in biochemistry with a concentration in public health. She completed her MD/MPH degree at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and performed cardiovascular epidemiology research with Drs. Donald Lloyd-Jones and Matthew Feinstein, creating a novel electronic cohort to study heart failure in HIV patients. She attended UCSF for her internal medicine residency and studied heart failure readmissions in a safety-net population. She hopes to apply her research interests in health care systems, disparities and implementation science as she pursues a career in heart failure and transplant cardiology.
David Wang, MD
David grew up in Houston, Texas. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a BA in public health (phi beta kappa). He received his MD from Harvard Medical School. He trained in internal medicine residency at the Brigham and Woman’s Hospital. He pursued research in (1) cardiovascular outcomes with Dr. Deepak Bhatt (2) cardiogenic shock with Dr. Ajar Kochar and (3) bedside procedure services with Dr. Majid Shafiq. He also completed the management and leadership pathway (MLP).
He is interested in interventional cardiology, cardiogenic shock, and mechanical circulatory support. He is also interested in medical education, specifically in bedside procedural training among medicine trainees.
Daniel Li, MD
Dr. Daniel Li was born in China and immigrated to the Bay Area at a young age. He attended college at the University of California San Diego where he began his research career studying cytoskeletal proteins involved in cardiomyopathies. He then worked at the National Institutes of Health prior to attending medical school at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. There, he studied the mechanisms linking diet, microbiome and cardiovascular disease using a systems biology approach and continued this research through the Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Fellowship. Daniel plans to pursue an academic career with the goal of developing a translational program using a systems approach to identify novel biomarkers that impact cardiovascular disease.
Brian Palmisano, MD, PhD
Dr. Brian Palmisano grew up in Quakertown, PA and went to University of Rochester where he majored in Biochemistry and Chemistry. After college, Brian spent a year at the National Institutes of Health before going to Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he completed the MD-PhD program. He completed his PhD under the mentorship of Dr. John Stafford. His thesis explored novel pathways of lipid metabolism with an emphasis on the influence of sex hormone signaling. He also worked on understanding novel pathways of selective insulin resistance and its impact on total body glucose and lipid metabolism. Dr. Palmisano completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Stanford through the Translational Investigator Pathway. Dr. Palmisano’s research interests are centered on using metabolism to validate novel targets identified through genetic and genomic screens. His ultimate goal is to identify new therapeutic targets to prevent atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Dr. Palmisano’s clinical interests are in Preventative Cardiology.